Paulina Garcia justifiably won the Berlin Film Festival’s best actress award for her portrayal of a 58-year-old Chilean divorcee who is equal parts devoted mom/grandma and club-hopper searching for love.

She thinks she finds it in sensitive Rodolfo (Sergio Hernandez, also outstanding in the recent “No”), who both over- and under-shares but, hey, owns a cool paintball/trapeze park. And he’s a tiger in bed, which Gloria clearly appreciates; borderline sexagenarian lovemaking has never looked hotter on screen.

Things aren’t so good, though, whenever Gloria tries to pry Rodolfo away from his constantly calling adult daughters, who are also representatives of his needy ex-wife. This drives Gloria to several undignified acts, which Garcia gets across with all the pain and humiliation required but barely a smidgen of the histrionics one might expect. This is a marvelously controlled performance that always leaves room for passion. But since she never overdoes it, Garcia creates space for Gloria to persuasively respond to the range of stimuli — familial warmth, crazy neighbors, just needing to get high on her own or in a crowd sometimes — as a woman of her experience would, if not always should.

Writer-director Sebastian Lelio helps her out immensely with a script, co-written by Gonzalo Maza, that is steeped in truthful situations and credible behavior. Kind of marvelously, the film also incorporates kicky little bits of absurdity like a dancing skeleton puppet and a hairless cat that keeps finding its unwelcome way into Gloria’s apartment. Such things are symbolic, of course, but they play as left-field delights.

There’s something political going on, too, that might mean more to Chileans than to anyone else. “Gloria’s” central concerns, however, are as universal as they come. No one wants getting older to suck, but by the time we’re pondering that, we’ve learned enough to accept lowered expectations. Gloria persists against the dimming of that light — did I mention she has early stage glaucoma? — but whatever doesn’t work out as she’d want it to, Garcia makes it very clear that nothing’s going to kill this gal anytime soon.

Bob Strauss has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.